November 15, 2008

Lately there have been disturbing trends of communalisation of the polity. The “encounter” at Batla House in the Capital’s Jamia Nagar gave a vivid demonstration of the manner in which organs of state power are targetting a particular community thereby engendering widespread resentment and even anger among large sections of the people.
The constituents of the Sangh Parivar have been over-active in this game of stereotyping a specific minority community by going to the extent of even (…)

Barack Hussein Obama is now a White House supremo in the making, the hero of a historic event in the happening, a democratic pheno-menon incarnating as the President and a unique symbol of an awakened young generation lying latent till now in the United States as a silent mega-majority suddenly speaking in an electro campaign and bursting through the ballot into a profoundly progressive, powerfully anti-Bush policy shift. America Inc. as Big Business and aggressive, authoritarian George Bush (…)

[(COMMUNICATION)]
It was interesting and informative to go through your editorial, “Voyage to the Moon” (Mainstream, October 25, 2008). You have thrown light on all aspects of the Chandrayaan mission but unfortunately the people who were behind the successful launching of Chandrayaan-1 failed to get attention.
A twelve-member team was behind the Moon Mission. Ms Khushbu Mirza, hailing from a small town Amroha, was one of them. Her story is an eye-opener for all Muslim girls. She has (…)

[(Shyam Chand’s article “Ugly Hidden Face of Terrorism: Vigilance is the Price of Liberty” that appeared in Mainstream (September 6, 2008) was a good piece of investigative journalism exposing the nefarious activities of the saffron terrorists (on the basis of which the recent arrests of suspected saffron terrorists took place). The author thus did yeoman service to the nation. The following is a follow-up of that article. —Editor)]
When asked to define Tohra, Hilel, before Christ, (…)

Amid the rubble of the Middle East policy of the George W. Bush-Ehud Olmert duo, there has been a true success story. The United States and Israel have largely succeeded in snatching India from the “other” side of the Middle Eastern geopolitical divide. This became evident more than once in the past week.
On October 26, US forces based in Iraq attacked the Syrian border village of Sukkaryiah. The attack triggered outrage regionally. Even the Arab League, which has an ambivalent attitude (…)

[(November 14 this year marks Jawaharlal Nehru’s one hundred and nineteenth birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing the following pieces by Nehru as well as three contributions of Prof V.K.R.V. Rao, Shyam Benegal and Sadiq Ali in ’’Nehru—the Nation Remembers’’ (Tributes from members of the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary); the article by B.N. Arora has been written specially for this journal’s observance of the Nehru birth (…)

Nearly two years ago, we adopted, at the Avadi Congress as well as in Parliament, the socialist pattern of society as our goal. That was not a sudden decision, but a natural development of our thinking and our national movement. Ever since the twenties, the Congress had been favourably inclined towards socialistic ideas. It is true that Congress thinking was rather vague and not precise, and was governed chiefly by idealistic considerations and a desire to raise the under-privileged and to (…)

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is not only a great patriot and one of the great sons of India, but also a great son of the world who played a significant role in the achivement of freedom for the colonial countries in both Asia and Africa. Even before he became Prime Minister, when he was in the Interim Government, he arranged to convene the Asian Relations Conference in early 1947, where he brought together all the sovereign and non-sovereign nations of Asia, and helped to build up an Asian (…)

Aristocratic in taste, democratic by temperament and egalitarian by conviction, Jawaharlal Nehru comes through as a man with a finely tuned artistic sensibility, with an unceasing curiosity in the world around him, never losing his sense of wonder at the marvels of life and the universe. His deep and abiding faith in humanity committed him to the cause of freedom not only for his own country but also for those countries from whom the right of self-determination was taken away. For him, (…)

We remember Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru today for a whole variety of reasons. He worked hard for the liberation of our country in loyal and effective co-operation with Mahatma Gandhi, his illustrious leader. Both he and the Mahatma, whilst seeking India’s political freedom, cherished visions of a new social and economic order. Their visions were not identical but had much in common. Nehru was the man builder of India’s democracy. His democracy had a wide basis, which included economic progress, (…)